Shari Randall's"Pets" will be included in Chesapeake Crimes: Fur, Feathers, and Felonies anthology, which will be published in 2018. In the same anthology "Rasputin," KM Rockwood'sshort story, will also bepublished. Her short story "Goldie" will be published in the Busted anthology, which will be released by Level Best Books on April 25th.

Shari Randall's second Lobster Shack Mystery, Against the Claw, will be available in August, 2018.

In addition, our prolific KMhas had the following shorts published as well: "Making Tracks" in Passport to Murder, Bouchercon anthology, October 2017 and "Turkey Underfoot," appears in the anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Making a List and Checking It Twice

I’m a big believer in using all the
help technology and professional writing books and programs can give me in
writing. I’ve tried using all kinds of workbooks, charts, and forms in working
on a novel. I’m even exploring Scrivener-type software programs for use in
writing my next book. I’m hardly on the cutting edge, but I’m also not one of
the “if it was good enough for Hemingway, it’s good enough for me” types.
Still, sometimes we look around and find simple everyday solutions to our
problems, and it would be silly not to take advantage of them.

One of the most useful tools I’ve
found in writing a novel is the simple, old-fashioned list. If you’re like me,
you use lists to remind you what you need to do during the day, what you need
to pack for a trip, what you need to buy at the grocery store, and dozens of
other mundane projects, large and small. It’s easy to assume we need something
more sophisticated for this complex novel (for novels are all more or less
complex) that we’re trying to hold in our heads and build on paper. However,
I’ve discovered that simple lists can help in several ways with making that
story in our head a reality in print.

First of all, I keep running
character and place lists. I write a mystery series. When I wrote the first
book, Every Last Secret, I was
creating all the characters from scratch, as well as all the places in my
fictional town. I wrote personality and
appearance sketches for each character, but in addition, I made a list of each
character as s/he appeared with a few words to note key characteristics. I did
the same for places in my made-up town. This meant I could look up the full
name of walk-on characters easily when I needed to much later in the book. It
meant that I could easily look up the important details of the buildings on the
campus and the shops on the town square as my protagonist, Skeet Bannion,
walked past them or into them.

These lists tripled in value when I
started the second book in the series and now the third. No one will have brown
eyes in the first novel and baby-blues in one of the later books. Old Central,
the 19th century castle-like mansion on the Chouteau University
campus, will not morph into a 1960s Bauhaus box of a building.

Next, when I’m plotting ahead,
simple lists come to my aid again. I’m a combination of outliner and
follow-the-writing plotter. I like to know where the next 25-50 pages are
going, plotwise—or to think I do, at least. I do this by making a list of
questions that I need to answer about the book. In the beginning, I have lots
of questions. The answer to only one or two may give me enough to start the
next several days’ writing. I stole the idea of asking myself questions and
answering them in writing from Sue Grafton. She posts to her website journals
that she keeps while writing each novel, and in these, she often asks and
answers these types of questions. I took it a bit further by trying to make
long lists of questions that needed to be answered, which often, in turn, add
more questions to the list when they are answered.

Answering the questions tells me
where the story wants to go, but these lists also help me keep the subplots
straight and make sure they tie in directly to the main plot, and they keep me
from overlooking some detail or element that will create a plot hole or other
disruption for the reader. These questions can vary from broad ones, such as
“What is the book’s theme?” and “How can I ratchet up the excitement and stakes
in Act II?” to more detailed, such as “What clue does Skeet get from this
interview?” and “What’s on Andrew’s desk?” Such question lists come in handy
during revision, as well.

During revision, I make yet another
kind of simple list. As I’m reading the manuscript straight through in hard
copy, I write down a list of questions as I go. I notice a weak spot and ask
myself, “How can I let the reader know how much Jake meant to Skeet, as well as
Karen?,” “Should I have Skeet attend Tina’s autopsy?,” and all too often,
“Reads competent enough, but where’s the magic?”

After going through my lists of
hundreds of big to tiny fixes and changes to make, and either making them
(most) or listing by scene where in the book to make the fix (for major issues),
I sit down to wrestle with 5-15 major problems from almost but not quite minor
to huge and complex. This final list is my guideline through the swamps of
revision. The issues on this list require changes that thread throughout part
or all of the book. Trying to do them all at once or even to keep them in my
mind all at the same time would bog me down—perhaps forever. Listing them and
working my way one item at a time through that list helps me to keep my focus
even while dealing with very complex situations that must be woven in and out
through the length of the novel.

In short, simple lists make the
complex task of writing a novel doable for me. What about you? Do you use lists
in your writing? Are there other tools you use for keeping track and keeping
focused as you plot, write, and revise?

10 comments:

As I write I list all characters -- major characters get their own tab, all others are listed on one tab with whatever description I have given them. Also included is the manuscript in which they appear.

I also keep a list of all invented companies (My mysteries involve financial crimes).

The third list I keep while I am writing is an "open issues" list. That includes all the things I've left hanging. For example a character may have asked a question that is not yet answered, or I've sent a character off stage and need to remember to bring them back. After the first draft some things will remain on the list and those need to be tackled in draft two.

I'll work on plot until I have that where I want it and then address other self-editing issues.

While self-editing, I make a list of issues as I read through the manuscript. For each scene I record some basic, but useful information: POV used, senses engaged, level of tension and the number of words.

And finally, I have a list of the type of writing atrocities I routinely commit -- which I talk about in tomorrow's WWK blog.

I'm a list maker by nature, but I have to admit that until I sell the first book, I minimized the importance of keeping lists. If I sell the book, then I'll have to go back and make all the lists that Linda documented, and I can understand the merit of doing so.

While I read my ms to revise, I too kept a running tab on "open issues," which I'm not sure I followed up on in subsequent chapters.

I use lists. I can't outline since that feels like completing the book. I wish I could but my characters don't like it. I list characters and sometimes events. One absolute essential for me is a timeline.

I know this sounds egotistical, forgive me, but I can memorize details easily, plus I visualize my characters so I know the color hair they have, etc. When I worked for SAIC, I had to memorize a computer system specs. I noticed others have more difficulty with memorization than I do. But, it's the logic I follow, and if it is logical, it's easy. But, like I said, I kept a list of follow up items to make sure that I actually do address them in subsequent chapters. Great post, Linda.

Yes, Warren, a timeline! I keep one list that's headed CHRONOLOGY. On it I put things that happened before the book opened that still affect the book's plot, as well as when each thing happens in the book.

I started this newest book I'm working on with a list of 25 scenes I wanted to have in the book. Then, I went on to list scenes around and leading to/from those until I had 50. (Ken Follett says a book should contain at least 50 good scenes.) Then I changed around the order until it was optimal. That's the guide I'm using while writing first draft now. I never can stick to an outline, so we'll see how this goes. (So far I've written the first nine scenes.)

Elaine, I don't think memory alone would work for me. I've written too many books. I recently pulled a novel out that I wrote a number of years ago to reread and revise so I could send it to my agent. I was truly grateful that I'd made all these lists then!

Yes, Jim, no full moon immediately before a quarter moon. Or, even simpler, in my Skeet books, she has responsibility for a teenager. If Chapter 3 was on Wednesday and Chap. 4 the next day, he's either got to be in school or there has to be some mention made of why he's not. Can't have Saturday follow Wednesday without a time lapse. Things like that.